Thursday, July 31, 2014

Part 35: "A Potent Weapon in the Hands of a Dwarf"

Part 35 of a comparison of
Holmes' manuscript with the published Basic Set rulebook. Turn to page 34 of
your 'Blue Book' and follow along... (page 33 for a 1st edition rulebook)

Magic Items Die Roll

Immediately after the
section on "Maps and Magic Item Categories", the manuscript has a
series of tables for magic items. As published these are all on page 36 (page
35 for a 1st edition rulebook). As I go through these, I'll skip ahead to the
relevant descriptions for each.

The first table is
"Magic Items Die Roll", which comes straight from OD&D Vol 2,
page 23, and Holmes' only change is to combine "Armor" and
"Misc. Weapons" into one entry, "Other Weapons and Armor".
This table, and the paragraph of instructions following it, are unchanged as
published except for correction of a typo ("20-40" for "Other
Weapons and Armor" is changed to "21-40"). Moldvay Basic also uses this table without any further changes.

Swords

Holmes' original table for Swords:

At the start of the section
on Treasure, Holmes wrote that the "tables have been abbreviated from the
GREYHAWK supplement for simplicity of use". That he referenced the
Greyhawk table, rather than just the shorter one in OD&D Vol 2, is shown
here by the presence of Greyhawk items like the Sword of Cold and the Vorpal
Sword.

The first six swords in his
table are found in both the original table and Greyhawk, although the Flaming
Sword (#3) is simplified a bit by making it +2 vs Undead rather than +3, and
leaving out the references to Pegasi, Hippogriffs, Rocs & Ents.

The last four swords
reference Greyhawk, though with some changes. The Sword of Cold is changed to a
"Basic" version mirroring the Flaming Sword, +1/2 (instead of +3/5).
The Sword +2 against Dragons seems a hybrid of the original's Sword +1, +3 vs
Dragons, and Greyhawk's Dragon Slaying Sword +2. Greyhawk simply lists
"Vorpal Blade" but here Holmes includes the bonus (+2) from page 47
of that book.
The published rulebook keeps Holmes' idea of a "Basic" ten-item
table, as well as several of the swords. However, changes were made to the
third and the last five swords, with the net result of only one entry that
references Greyhawk.

At #3, the Flaming Sword is
reverted to the original, giving +3 against Undead.

Holmes' choice for #8 is
reverted to the original version from OD&D Vol 2: a Sword +1, +3 against
Dragons, and moved to spot #6, replacing the second sword with a
spell-like ability, Sword +1, Charm Person Ability.

At #7, the Sword of Cold is
changed to Sword +1, +2 against Magic-users and Enchanted Monsters, also from
the original table. The definition of an Enchanted Monster is not explained
further in this section. As we saw back in Part 10, Gygax amended the description of Protection from
Evil to add some examples of Enchanted Monsters, including "elementals,
invisible stalkers, demons, etc" - although none of these are
found in the Basic rulebook.

Item #8 becomes Sword +3,
also from the original table.

Item #9 is merely clarified
from Sword +1 Cursed to Sword -1 Cursed. The original table had just a Sword -2
Cursed, and Greyhawk confusingly had this and a Sword +1 Cursed. Holmes may
have thought that Sword +1 Cursed was the clearest way to explain this (perhaps
because the sword resembles a Sword +1), but TSR went with the -1.

Item #10 is drastically
nerfed from the awesome Vorpal Blade +2 to the Sword -2 Cursed, and doubling the number of cursed swords from 10% to 20%, a bit harsh for Basic.

This picture of a sword in a jeweled scabbard is found within the tables in the
publishedrulebook. It has been reported that Tom Wham indicated that this is his work. Moldvay Basic keeps Holmes' idea of a short list, and in fact makes it even shorter: only 8 swords. Sword +3 and Sword -2 are the dropped ones. Several of the others are simplified; the flaming sword +1 becomes a sword +1, +3 vs undead. The sword with the locating objects ability is changed to a sword that casts light on command. (Holmes indicated at pg 9 of the rulebook that all magic swords shed light).Armor and Weapons

Holmes picked all of these
except the last from the two original tables for Armor and Miscellaneous
Weapons in OD&D Vol 2. For #5, he slightly modified the original's Dagger
+1 vs Man-Sized, +2 vs Goblins and Kobolds by adding Orcs to the group; in the
original Orcs are only included with the Dagger +2 vs Man-Sized Opponents. The
cursed armor at #10 appears to be Holmes' simplification of the Armor of
Vulnerability in Greyhawk, which appears to be from +1 to +4 but is actually -1
to -4.

In the published rulebook
this table is changed less than the Swords table. Item #5 is removes Orcs, to
conform with the original, and at #6 a second dagger is added, the Dagger +2
mentioned above (a nice addition for M-Us). Axe +1 and War Hammer +1 are each
shifted up one position, and the War Hammer +3 is deleted from spot 8. (Perhaps
the Sword +3 was thought to be a better choice). The Cursed Armor is left
unchanged rather than making it -1 like the Cursed Sword, possibly because at
this point in D&D you were still instructed to subtract the armor's bonus
from the opponent's to hit roll. Making the Armor -1 but then adding it to the
opponent's hit roll would have been confusing.
The first edition of the published rulebook refers to a War Hammer +3 in the section
on Dwarves (pg 6), complete with a "described later" reference, so it
is not surprising to find it in the manuscript. The second edition of the
rulebook removed this errant reference.

Moldvay Basic also shortens this list to 8 items. The Dagger +2/3 is dropped and the Dagger +1/2 is changed to just a plain Dagger +1. The War Hammer +1 is changed to a Mace +1. The Spear +1 and Bow +1 are dropped, and a combined Armor +1 & Shield +1 entry is added.

Now we'll skip ahead to the
corresponding description under "Explanation of Magical Items"

Magical
Weapons

For this section, Holmes draws on OD&D Vol 2, pages 30-31. There's just one major change
here in the published rulebook. The first seven sentences are identical, but the eighth and ninth relate
to the powers of the War Hammer +3 and are thus changed.

Holmes' original: "The magic war-hammer +3 is
a potent weapon in the hands of dwarf, for then it does 2 die of damage per
hit, can be thrown 60 feet and will return to the dwarf's hand after each
throw. In the hands of any other character it has normal range and damage and
no return capability, merely conferring +3 on the ability to hit".

This follows the description in
OD&D Vol 2, but omits the extra +3 damage versus giants.

The replacement text as
published:"Magical weapons other than
swords always add their bonus to both hit probability and to the points of
damage scored. Thus, a War Hammer +2 adds to the chance of hitting and also
does 2 additional hit points when it does strike."

So the text about the War Hammer +3 is changed to refer to War Hammer +2, although this
lesser weapon is not included in the list of items.

Holmes unfortunately omits any description of what a Vorpal Blade does, which
may have contributed to the decision to delete it from the list.Update: I originally posted this on July 30th, but then I accidentally erased it the next day by saving a draft in place of it. Fortunately, I was able to grab the text from going back in another broswer window and re-create the identical post. The comments were magically restored when I reposted it.

Update #2: I went back added a few notes of comparison about the corresponding table in Moldvay Basic. Holmes' overall idea of a series of short tables is kept, along with many of his particular choices.